


Messy Soul

by Adenil



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bannertech, Demisexuality, Falling In Love, M/M, Pep talks, Playing with tropes, Polyamorous Character, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-19 11:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2386841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adenil/pseuds/Adenil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton was born with a tangled mess of a soul mark, which pretty accurately reflects his life, actually. This is the story of him dealing with that mess by not dealing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bruvebanner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bruvebanner/gifts).



> The other day I thought to myself, "Boy, I sure am busy. Better start another project."
> 
> Then I wrote this fic. I've got it 90% written. Just needs cleanup in the later chapters. Inspired by [this](http://slowdancingangels.tumblr.com/post/96407495725/part-1-what-if-your-soul-mates-name-was-above-your) post on slowdancingangels' Tumblr.
> 
> TW this chapter for mentions of off-screen child abuse.

“Edith, Edith I need you to breathe, all right? That’s good. Deep breaths. Steady. When you feel the urge just push, okay?”

 

The urge hit her, deep and sudden and instinctual. It was a cramp magnified by a thousand, leeching out through her stomach and down her back, like a charley horse in her gut. Her mouth opened in a strangled scream unabated and she _pushed_ with every muscle she had. Her right hand tangled in the bedclothes and her left groped limply at the empty chair beside her.

 

“Where… where is Harold?” She moaned and threw her head back against the pillow. The lights haloed, creating spots in her eyes as she blinked back sweat.

 

“Your husband is with your son.” A nearby nurse grabbed her hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. “You’re doing great. I’m sure he’ll be back very soon.”

 

The doctor glanced up from his position between her legs and said a few words to the nurse that Edith didn’t understand. Something about crowns and dilation. Edith felt sick. Her stomach felt like someone had wrapped up her guts and twisted them into a ball.

 

“’M sick.”

 

“Contractions are coming faster; that’s good. Keep pushing, Edith.”

 

She obeyed. She couldn’t really do anything else. She squeezed the nurse’s hand and pretended that it was her husband’s. She pretended she was feeling that jolt of excitement she always got when she held his broad fingers in her slight ones. She pretended he was warm and comforting around her as she screamed and swore and cursed and—

 

“Oh, God, it’s…”

 

Crying. There was crying.

 

She let out a breathless laugh. Her baby was there, swaddled in the doctor’s arms. She could see the way the blue blanket caught on his skin. Her baby was there and the pain was over.

 

“Please.” She reached towards the doctor. “Please.”

 

The doctor stood perfectly still.

 

She watched him for a moment, blindly reaching. He stared at the gooey baby in his arms with his brow knit together, eyes studiously scanning her beautiful baby boy. She could see the crown of his head. He had a curly wisp of blond hair plastered to it. She thought it looked perfect.

 

He was still crying.

 

“Doctor?” The nurse asked, giving Edith’s hand another reassuring squeeze.

 

He seemed to snap out of it. He glanced over at Edith and gave a frankly concerning smile. “C-congratulations,” he said. He cleared his throat and wrapped the baby a little tighter in the blanket, pulling it around his shoulders. “It’s a boy.”

 

“A boy.” She laughed again. She already knew. She felt heady. “Please, my husband should be here.”

 

“I’ll go get him.” The nurse disappeared. Edith didn’t even see her go.

 

The doctor carefully moved towards her, still holding the baby with that concerned look on his face.

 

“Is he okay?” Edith suddenly felt scared. “Is he all right? He’s crying. He has to be all right.”

 

“Everything looks nor—looks fine.” He stopped a step away and regarded the squirming infant. “He seems healthy.”

 

“Then why are you looking at him like that?” She grabbed for him again, and was shocked when the doctor pulled him away. “Doctor?”

 

“Honey?”

 

A momentary feeling of relief flashed through her as Harold slammed into the room. He rushed to her side and gathered up her hand, holding it in his own desperately. His touch was like little bolts of electricity, sharp and pleasant, sending tingles down her spine. She ignored the acrid scent of whisky. It didn’t matter. She loved him.

 

“I’m so sorry. Barney didn’t know when to quit,” he whispered into her hair. He glanced at the doctor, who was still standing dumbly. “Is this him? Is this our baby?” He frowned. “Why isn’t she holding him? A mother should get to hold her child.”

 

Their doctor snapped forward and practically dumped their little boy into Edith’s arms. She gathered him up and cooed at him. His baby-blue eyes were screwed shut as he wailed. He smelled awful, and so she wiped at the corner of his mouth with his blanket.

 

She froze.

 

“Oh, God.”

 

The baby squirmed in her arms, but she only had eyes for his now-exposed shoulder. There was black on it, inky and dark. She inched his blanket down further and felt Harold lean in incredulously.

 

“What the hell did you do to our son?”

 

The doctor spluttered. Harold screamed at him. Edith just stared at her child. At his soul mark.

 

It was a mess. It looked wrecked. A tangled mass of letters and symbols and _fingerprints_. It was completely illegible. She sucked in air, the doctor’s earlier admonishment to _breathe_ echoing through her. She’d been hoping for something simple, some sweet girl’s name in sweet girl’s handwriting. A Jessica, maybe. Or a Barbara. Someone who would make her son happy for the rest of his life.

 

She found she was crying. Her tears fell on her son’s chest as it rose and fell in time with his gasping cries. But they didn’t wash the mark away.

 

Edith looked up as Harold stumbled from the room, his fingers curled tight into fists. She automatically looked at his chest as he went, at the space above his heart hidden by his shirt where it read _Edith Lola Johnson_ in her dainty handwriting. Her maiden name.

 

“Mrs. Barton.” The doctor stepped beside her and carefully swaddled her son again. She tried to wipe away her tears. She wasn’t supposed to cry in front of strangers. “I think we need to run some tests on your son.”

 

She stared at the crying infant in her arms and nodded.

 

*

 

_In Waverly, Iowa there was an extra line on the birth certificate. A lot of small towns had them. A little space beneath “mother” and “father” where it said “soul mate.” Clinton Francis Barton’s read “unintelligible,” and is the only certificate known to do so._

 

*

 

“Oh, shut up. Dad doesn’t _hate_ you.”

 

“Yeah he does, Barney.” Clint folded his tiny arms over his chest and pouted at him. “I mean, he has to. Right?”

 

Barney very pointedly did not look at the bruises on his brother’s arms, mixes of yellow and purple and red. There was a new one. Hand-shaped. Right on his elbow. Barney didn’t like to look at them, so he handed his brother a long-sleeved shirt.

 

“He doesn’t hate you. You just piss him off.” He glanced around the room as Clint slowly, wincingly pulled the shirt over his head. “It’s just ‘cause you’re young. I used to piss him off all the time. ‘S just a thing Barton Boys do, yeah? Okay?”

 

“Yeah.” Clint pouted more. He tugged at the front of his shirt despondently. “Okay.”

 

Barney smiled at him. His brother was only a few years younger than him, but he already felt a thousand years old in comparison. He had to keep Clint safe from dark thoughts, like the crazy idea that their dad hated him. Everyone knew that’s just how dads showed they cared.

 

“Okay.” Barney patted him on the arm. “Did you get an answer, anyway?”

 

“Dad says I have to go to Mike’s birthday party.” If possible, Clint looked even more depressed. “Even though I don’t have nothing to give him and he’s a real jerk.”

 

“Shut up, he’s not a jerk. You’re ‘sposed to go to parties. It’s like a rule.” Barney held himself a little higher. “ _I_ am going to Lucy Mae’s party in a month. You’ve gotta go to boy’s parties so you can learn how to go to girl’s parties. When you’re as old as I am you’ll thank Dad for making you go.”

 

Clint mumbled something under his breath and went back to picking at his shirt.

 

“What?”

 

“I _said_ ,” Clint said despondently. “That he _is_ a jerk.”

 

“What’d he do? Make fun of your wimpy right hook?” He meant it as a joke. Clint had been getting better during their little spars. But Clint seemed even more distressed.

 

“No, I wouldn’t hit him. That’s mean. He’s just, he’s such a _jerk_. He’s always—” Clint abruptly cut himself off and glanced towards the door to their room. Barney glanced too, but it was still closed. He relaxed a little. Dad was probably sleeping on the couch like he sometimes did.

 

Clint looked down at his knee caps and mumbled, “He’s always making fun of my mark.”

 

“What?” Barney scowled at his brother. “Are you trying to piss _me_ off, now? You’re not supposed to show it to people! Dad said never!”

 

“I know!” Clint glanced around again. His eyes looked wet and his face was all scrunched up. Barney didn’t like that look. “I didn’t mean to. I just, I only showed it to Johnny and—”

 

“ _Johnny_?” Barney gasped. He leaned in and dropped his voice low. “Why’d you show it to _him_? He’s a fag.” He whispered the last word. He wasn’t supposed to say things like that, so if his mom heard he’d be eating a bar of soap. But he was probably safe because Mom always had to go shopping when Clint made Dad mad.

 

“Shut up! I know what he is.” Clint kept his voice low, too. They both leaned in towards each other furtively. “I thought, since his mark is something weird that he wouldn’t care but he went and blabbed so now everyone knows.”

 

“You can’t trust a boy who has a boy’s name on him,” Barney told him. “Seriously, are you stupid?”

 

“No.” Clint scoffed, but he looked ashamed. “I just wanted a friend.”

 

Barney wanted to comfort him, but he had to teach his brother that he couldn’t act like a little baby for the rest of his life. So instead he sat up straighter and pulled away from him, affecting a cool look like the ones the heroes in the Sunday inserts always had. “You don’t need him as a friend. You’ve got family. And you can go to Mike’s party and make lots of friends there.”

 

Clint looked miserable. He buried his face in his hands. “But what am I going to get him? I don’t have any money for something nice.”

 

“We’ll think of something.” Barney’s mind was already whirring with ideas. “Something real good, so he’ll be impressed and make his sister invite you to her birthday party.”

 

“Barney!” Clint looked scandalized. “She’s _twelve_.”

 

“So? Someday you’ll be twelve.”

 

“Not for a really long time. I’m just a little kid.”

 

Barney smirked at him. “You are kinda little.”

 

“Am not.”

 

“Are too.”

 

“Am not!”

 

“Are too!”

 

Clint tackled him, grinning. Barney was laughing as the tumbled around the floor of their room, wrestling for control. They kept it up, with Barney winning most of the fight but occasionally letting his brother get in a good headlock, until they heard a knock on the front door. Barney was still laughing as the knocking got louder.

 

He went downstairs with Clint following in his shadow like he sometimes did. “Mom?” He looked into the kitchen, but it was empty. The couch was bare. “Dad?” They couldn’t find either of them.

 

Finally, he just answered the door even though he wasn’t supposed to.

 

It was a policeman.

 

*

 

_Mrs. Barton laughed. It made her face twist up horrifically, like she had no idea what a laugh was supposed to look like. “He would never hit me. He loves me. We’re soul mates.”_

 

*

 

_Scientific Curiosity!_

_Modern Medicine CanNOT Explain!_

_Communication from GOD?_

_SEE!_

_His Strange Mark!_

_FEEL!_

_It’s Real, Folks!_

_Constantly Changing—Never the same TWICE!_

(There was a little painting beneath the bylines of Clint staring out, his shoulder and chest awash with twisted black lines and question marks. The entire side of his cart was question marks and the color purple.

 

If it was a slow night the ringmaster would let him put on his bow and arrow act. He preferred those nights.)

 

*

 

If Clint was small enough then they couldn’t find him.

 

He was good at this. He curled himself a little tighter and tucked himself a little deeper into the corner of the warehouse. He’d been hiding all his life. Don’t stand out. Hide your mark. Keep your head down. Don’t cry like your mom. Wear long sleeves. Don’t be an individual. Hide under the spotlights at the circus. Make them remember your tricks and shots, not your face and name. He could do this.

 

He was the boy under the sink hiding from his mother’s tears and his father’s whisky-scented spittle. He was the teenager on stage invisible beneath the mask of Hawkeye—boy wonder. He was the man in the corner of a warehouse hoping against hope that this time he would go unnoticed.

 

Only, they would always find him. In a few minutes there would be gunshots and cruel drawling voices. Clint had been running all his life. He wondered if this was the time to stop.

 

He decided it wasn’t when he felt a fist in his hair and cool metal against his temple.

 

He struck out, but he was just one man, one pitiful soul in a world of pitiful souls. There would always be too many. Too many thugs with vendettas, too many people willing to sell the story of the strange vagrant with the bizarre soul mark.

 

He broke a man’s neck and wondered if somewhere in the world there was now a woman with a crossed-out name above her heart.

 

Clint was a tangle of limbs against knife blades and gun barrels. He could feel cool metal on his head again, like a distant forgotten memory. He heard a _click_ of the hammer being cocked. His breathing was fast and stilted, and soon to be ended.

 

“Please put the weapon down.”

 

It was like something out of a movie. The thugs all turned in unison to eye the stocky little man in his perfectly pressed suit. The look on his face was one of faint amusement, the weapon in his hand a charged taser.

 

The goons laughed, and between one inhale and the next they were a pile of unconscious bodies. It was stunning, exquisite, because here was just one man who could do what Clint couldn’t—save his life. Who could take out men with a taser and found weapons without ever wrinkling his suit or letting one hair fall out of place on his balding head.

 

“Mr. Barton.” The suited man stuck out a hand, half a hand shake and half an attempt to get Clint standing again. “I’m Agent Coulson. I have a proposition for you.”

 

*

 

_SHIELD Operations Manual page 862 paragraph 2_

_In the event of the discovery of a soul mate during normal SHIELD operations, the AGENT shall immediately be considered compromised. Under no circumstances is the AGENT to make contact with a suspected soul mate during SHIELD operations. If you suspect you have met your soul mate, immediately report to your handler for situation assessment._

 

*

  
“Agent Barton will you _please_ hold still?”

 

Barton abruptly stopped fidgeting, holding so still that he came back around the other side and started vibrating with internalized energy. He stared at Hill with wide nervous eyes and said, “Sorry. Go on. I’m listening, really.”

 

Hill glanced at the makeup artist, who nodded and went back to work on Barton’s shoulder and chest. “This isn’t going to be like your other missions,” Hill said. “You’ll be deep undercover. I need to know that you’ve assimilated all of the facts of this case.”

 

Barton’s leg began to jump again. He glanced down at where the makeup artist was painstakingly covering his enormous mark. “Find the girl, shoot her in the eye. It’s not that complicated.”

 

Hill pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest in the way that always sent junior agents scurrying. Barton seemed immune. “She isn’t a girl. She’s a high-powered super spy set adrift with the fall of the Soviet Union. In other words: extremely dangerous. We need to take her out quickly and quietly.”

 

“So don’t let her run, got it.” Barton dusted his fingertips over the paint on his chest. He still only had eyes for the makeup artist.

 

“Don’t let her do _anything_. She’ll kill you on sight. You need to be a completely normal person until the moment you strike.”

 

“What’s it gonna say?”

 

“Excuse me?” Hill arched an eyebrow at her agent.

 

“My…mark.” He examined his fingertips as if to make sure he hadn’t brushed any paint off. “Can’t go around with a scribble, right? What’ll it say?”

 

Hill eyed him for a moment before consulting the file in her hands. “Douglas Richard Patinski,” she intoned. The makeup artist glanced up at her before going back to work. Barton seemed unaffected by the words. “You haven’t met, anyway, so it’s of no concern.”

 

“So, what? I’m gay?”

 

“Apparently.” She flipped through her notes again. “The spy has been spotted in several locations well known for housing sexual minorities, among others. It’s likely that she is only going there due to the transient nature of the people there, but this mark will help you blend in.”

 

“Okay.” He watched as a stylized letter _D_ took shape over his heart. “I was just…just wondering.”

 

She arched her eyebrow again and went back to reading the file. Barton seemed frozen now, intent on the shape forming on his chest in black ink. The absence of jitters made the rest of the briefing go smoothly, and Hill actually felt confident that Barton’s op would go just as well.

 

*

 

_A little girl with red hair sat singing about love. The words were in English, heavily accented and nonsense to her. But she liked the way it sounded as it echoed off the cement walls of her cell. Sometimes she rubbed a hand over her heart and wondered._

 

*

 

Natasha eyed the bottom of her glass with weary disinterest. There were a few drips left, perhaps enough for a taste of bourbon but no more. She swirled them around and contemplated the fact that she still didn’t seem able to get drunk.

 

She glanced to one side at where Clint was scribbling wildly on a napkin, alcohol-bright eyes scanning his little drawing madly. He, at least, was quite capable of intoxication.

 

“What are you drawing?”

 

Clint turned the napkin towards her. “A new arrow idea. Think the R&D guys can get it done?”

 

Natasha glanced up at him, and then carefully examined the napkin. There was a little stick-figure drawing of someone she presumed to be Clint holding a bow. There was a line with a tube on the end clutched in one of his stick-figure hands, and a cloud of smoke off to one side. Clint had drawn arrows pointing at the cloud and labelled it “explosions.”

 

“You want explosive arrows?” she hazarded a guess.

 

“ _Delayed_ explosive arrows,” Clint confirmed. “Right now they explode on impact. It’s boring. No fun. Need something I can activate whenever I want.”

 

She snatched his drink from him and drained a sip. “Clint, you’re drunk. You don’t need explosives when you’re drunk.”

 

“I’m not drunk; I’m _inspired_.” Clint fanned his hand over his chest in mock-snobbishness.

 

She snorted. She leaned back against the bar and let him scribble away. She contented herself with examining the other assembled SHIELD operatives, cataloging the snapshots of their lives. The woman pleading with the outdated jukebox in the corner. The man stacking glass after empty glass in front of his bleary eyes. Two lost operatives finding each other in the corner, bent over a plate of forgotten fries with horror in their eyes and desperation in the curl of their lips.

 

She reached out and tapped the back of Clint’s hand to get his attention. “I’m going to turn in for the night.”

 

Clint looked up at her for a moment as if she was both too fuzzy and too sharp. He kept one hand moving over the napkin, although he couldn’t have seen what he was drawing. “Want me to walk you home?”

 

Natasha smirked at him and rolled her eyes. “Getting you drunk makes you chivalrous?”

 

“Nope, the opposite.” He folded the napkin and slipped it into his pocket. He leaned over to get a better look at her and wound up spilling haphazardly into her lap. “Whoops, uh…”

 

“Sit up, you’re embarrassing.” She helped him to get to his feet.

 

“Sorry, sorry.” He patted her shoulder and gave her a wan grin. “You must have a fish’s liver.”

 

Natasha blinked at him and together they left the bar. “What does that even mean?”

 

“You’re stone-cold sober.”

 

“No I’m not.” She tried to act drunk, putting extra length on her vowels.

 

“And now you’re doing the spy-thing where you pretend to be drunk.” He laughed at her and patted her arm again. She noticed ink on his fingertips.

 

She huffed out a breath, but couldn’t really argue with that. They wandered down the halls of the SHIELD base, both leaning on the other for different kinds of stability. Clint was a solid mass of annoying muscle at her side as she directed them to Clint’s little room in the barracks.

 

“Said I was walking you home.” Clint pouted at her. His eyes were still bright and odd.

 

She had to dig into his pocket for his key. “No, you assumed.” She flipped open the door and pushed him in. She thought about walking away then, but Clint’s subsequent struggle was too amusing.

 

Clint sat down on the ground with one leg outstretched and tried to tug at his shoelaces. “Aw, shoes.” He shook his head at his own pitiful state and wound up tying knots in his laces.

 

“You’re pathetic.”

 

Natasha slipped into the room and knelt beside him to help him out of his shoes. Clint smiled dreamily at her as she did so, occasionally tipping his toes to one side to thwart her.

 

“Aw, Nat,” he said in the same tone of voice he used to talk to his shoes. “You’re really nice, you know?”

 

“No, I’m really not.” She’d finally gotten one shoe off and went to work on the other.

 

“I mean, ‘nice’ is a weak word for you. Even though you always take care of me.”

 

“You took care of me. It’s a favor to return.” The shoelaces seemed an impenetrable obstacle to leaving.

 

“Nat.” Suddenly, Clint’s hand was on her chin. He lifted her face towards him and she saw his bright eyes smiling at her. “Can I kiss you?”

 

She stared at him, frozen. Then in one swift motion she yanked off his shoe and stood up, swaying a bit in the stale air. “No.”

 

“Sorry.” Clint frowned up at her before glancing away, rubbing at his chest like it hurt. “Didn’t mean to… sorry.”

 

Natasha started to take a step back, but the look on Clint’s face stopped her. “Clint…”

 

“Are you gay?” he asked suddenly. He didn’t look directly at her. “’Cause the first time we met you were in the Russian equivalent of the Castro District which is, ya’ know, pretty gay. So that’s cool if you are but I just figured you would’a said something.”

 

“Clint, I’m not gay.”

 

“Oh.”

 

She let out a long sigh. “Don’t act like that. You’re being stupid.” She looked at his pitiful bright eyes. “You’re not used to getting let down, are you?”

 

“Not really.” He shrugged one shoulder and offered her a sort of lopsided smile.

 

She ignored the urge to tell him he should probably _get_ used to it. She could save it for another time. “I’m not gay. I’m just not interested in that with you. We’re partners. We're too close for that.”

 

He looked a little confused and switched to plucking despondently at his shirt. She followed the motion with her eyes for a moment.

 

“What’s—” He stopped himself. He stared at the ground and dropped his hand. His voice was broken little whisper. “What’s on your heart?”

 

“Nothing,” she said curtly. His head shot up and his eyes widened, so she interrupted his inevitable questions with, “The Red Room made sure of that.”

 

“Oh.” He looked sick. “Hell, Nat. I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t apologize.” She took a quiet breath and allowed Clint to see her smile. “Think you can make it to bed on your own?”

 

“Yeah.” He carefully got to his feet, socked feet sliding on the floor. He wobbled a bit towards the cot in the corner before pausing. He stared at a blank space on the wall. “You’re not gonna…ask me, are you?”

 

She knew what he meant, but her eyes didn’t flicker downwards. Even a civilian could have picked up on the way Clint hid his chest from prying eyes. “No,” she said simply.

 

He smiled a little and nodded. “Okay, that’s… that’s good.”

 

“Go to bed, Clint.” She watched him obey. She took a few steps backwards and vanished through the door.

 

She barely heard his quiet, “G’night, Nat,” as the door slipped shut behind her.

 

*

 

 _Bruce Banner kissed her—love of his life, the woman with another man’s name on her heart—and stepped into the device. It was a whir of green and metal and it made his skin itch and his brain register the scent of sandalwood. He winked at her as if to prove the experiment would be a success_.

 

*

 

Clint awoke with a groan and rolled over to smack at his alarm clock. It beeped at him until his fist made contact, stopping the noise at 11:03 exactly. He lay face down breathing in the scent of down and feathers as he tried to fight gravity enough to rise.

 

It took him a while, but he managed it, wincing and groaning and scratching at his stomach. He tossed his t-shirt aside and contemplated brushing his teeth before he showered, but when he caught sight of himself in the mirror he froze.

 

Clint stared into the mirror, trying to memorize what he was seeing. There wasn’t much to memorize. His arm moved on its own to reach out and brush against cool glass, momentarily disrupting the reflection of his soul mark.

 

His soul mark which he could now _read_.

 

Four letters. All caps. Bright green and apparently in _Times New Roman_ font, of all the things. The letters were sitting dead-center of the usual swirl of black nonsense and symbols and fingerprints. The rest of his mark was confined to the edges of his chest and the space over his left shoulder. It was like the roiling mass of unintelligible lines was trying to run away from those four letters.

 

His mark said _HULK._

 

Clint realized he wasn’t breathing and so he took a deep, calming breath and steadied himself on the sink. He brought his hand up again and picked at the letters on his chest as if he could rub through them, even though that was impossible. He’d never seen anything like this. His mark changed sometimes, sure, but it was never legible.

 

The first person he called was Natasha.

 

She was on a mission, but he still held out hope as the phone rang and rang and rang, never going to voicemail. He stared at himself in the mirror with a strange sense of detachment. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling. Fear? Confusion? Angst? He didn’t feel much of anything in the face of the sudden realization that his soul mate apparently had insane parents. Who would name their child _Hulk?_

 

He realized the phone had been ringing for nearly ten minutes, and so he hung up and dialed Coulson.

 

Coulson’s phone rang only two times, but it was enough for Clint to realize he was being ridiculous. He didn’t know what was on Coulson’s chest, but it was probably something mundane like _Jane Smith_ in no-nonsense font. Coulson wouldn’t understand.

 

“No, we don’t have a new mission for you.”

 

Clint smirked a little in a desperate attempt to lighten the confused feeling in his chest when he looked in the mirror. “Actually, I was wondering how many vacation days I had saved up.”

 

Coulson’s pause sounded shocked. “ _You_ want to take a vacation?”

 

He stared into the mirror, tracing letters with his eyes. “Yeah.”

 

“Well.” Clint could hear Coulson digging through papers. “You’ve banked three months’ worth. If there’s an emergency we reserve the right to call you in, but…”

 

“I’ll take a week.”

 

“Make it two,” Coulson said. His voice was warm. “You need a vacation, Barton.”

 

“You’re one to talk.” He sighed and tried to sound put-out by the notion. “All right, two weeks. Hey, let me know when Nat’s back from her current mission, yeah?”

 

“Will do.”

 

He hung up and stared into the mirror for a while longer. It seemed to him that the name _Hulk_ had gotten larger, but it must have been his imagination.

 

After that he did what he probably should have done a long time ago. He actually looked up his condition.

 

*

 

_I have two marks and my mom thinks I’m a slut. HELP._

_I’m ace. Will I be forced into sex when I meet my SM?_

_My mark has a line through it. What does it mean?_

_SM was Jeffrey Dahmer—AMA_

_SWF Lucy Annie Lambert seeks Anton Bean._

_Touch, but no Spark?_

_My mark is a fingerprint?_

 

*

 

Clint paused there and brought up the thread. The picture at the beginning was poorly taken and the mark was barely visible in the yellow light, but it was still clearly a thumb print. Clint thought of the mish-mash of different fingerprints on his own chest, but didn’t look down. He was afraid it would no longer say _Hulk_.

 

He read through the thread and massaged his chest absently. Someone said maybe it meant their soul mate was a criminal. Another person cited an anthropological study of tribes with no written language and their thumbprint marks. Some smartass asked, “What if they can’t write and they have no thumbs?” (Clint was that smartass.)

 

It didn’t matter anyway. Yeah, he had prints on his chest, but more than just the one. And they were all wrapped up in other names.

 

He spent his two week vacation holed up in his room falling deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of soul mark studies. It had never occurred to him before—his mark was a burden, not a curiosity. He learned that multiple names occurred in ten percent of the population, and the most ever recorded was four names on Henry VIII of England. Not one of them had been the names of his wives.

 

He scrolled around and clicked links and eventually found his way to the library to check out books. He read and considered and rubbed at his chest, and on day eight his mark stopped saying _Hulk_.

 

It went back to its normal tangled mess, but now he could see that some of the unintelligible names had lines through them. They were crossed out. Like part of his soul mate had died.

 

He wondered how many he had, that his mark should be such a mess. Others with multiple mates just had them listed in a nice neat row, one right after the other, like a bullet-pointed shopping list of loves-of-your-life. This tangled mass of black ink just didn’t happen.

 

When Natasha returned she said her mission had been classified and she agreed to take him drinking. He sought solace in the bottom of a bottle and wondered if that made him like his dad.

 

He never told her.

 

*

 

_Clint missed the article in a tiny Canadian psychology journal titled, “’Thought I was normal’: Evidence for the existence of Dissociative Identity Disorder through the examination of soul marks and their hosts.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super proud I worked a live birth scene into a male/male romance. Also, fun fact: tasers were invented in the 70s. I'm imagining disco!Coulson and his taser.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint didn’t know the tiny, curly-haired man that Captain America and Iron Man were getting so worked up about. Natasha sent him a sardonic grin as the man exchanged a few pithy words with the Cap.

 

Then the man turned around and grew ten feet tall with bursting muscle beneath green skin to punch the space whale in the mouth, and Clint thought _oh_.

 

*

 

Bruce Banner.

 

His name was Bruce Banner.

 

_Robert_ Bruce Banner, actually, and he had apparently gone by a lot of names while on the run. He favored the name _David_ and tended to turn his first name into his last name, which explained why SHIELD had been able to catch up with him so many times.

 

Clint absorbed his file in record time while casting furtive glances to where Steve Rogers was calmly trying to convince the ten-foot tall green rage monster to please let Dr. Banner come out to play. Stark was nearby rolling his eyes and generally being unhelpful as robots tried to pry him out of his suit.

 

“Ah, Rogers, you are no fun. Let the guy live a little! We were going for shawarma. I bet Hulk loves shawarma, don’t you buddy?”

 

Hulk grunted.

 

Stark just laughed. He patted Hulk on the shoulder. He glanced over at where Clint had tucked himself into the corner of the room and said, “What about you, Barton? Up for a team dinner?”

 

Instead of something logical, or even flippant, Clint opened his mouth and said, “Get out. I’ll deal with Hulk.”

 

That got Stark frowning. He shrugged off the robots still trying to get the metal off his hips and swaggered over to Clint. Rogers kept talking to Hulk in low, soothing tones, not even bothering to look at them.

 

“Why do you want us to leave so bad?” Stark asked. His tone sounded dismissive, but in a false way. He had a look on his face like he’d stepped in something. “SHIELD give you a fancy Hulk-busting arrow?”

 

“What?” Clint frowned. “No.” He struggled for something to say that wouldn’t give himself away, but Stark was looking at him with bright doe-eyes, like a deer staring into a nuclear reaction and picking apart the mechanics of it. So instead Clint dropped his voice low and hoped that Rogers didn’t have super hearing as well.

 

“You’re going to leave me with him,” Clint said slowly, lowly. “Because sometimes my soul mark says ‘Hulk.’”

 

Stark blinked at him in mild, almost pleased, shock. Then he broke into a wolfish grin, stark contrast to his earlier doe-eyes. “Son of a bitch. I knew he was lying.”

 

“Lying?”

 

“Bruce said he didn’t have a mark.” Stark leaned in and his eyebrows began to climb comically high into his hairline. “Maybe he was embarrassed, but trust me he has _nothing_ to be embarrassed about.” He gave Clint a quick once-over, appraising.

 

Clint frowned. He glanced over at where Rogers was pointedly not listening to them talk. “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

 

Stark seemed to sober at the thought, and he nodded. “Let me see it.”

 

“It’s…” A mess. Disgusting. Horrible. The worst thing that’d ever happened to him. “Private.”

 

“Then I don’t believe you.”

 

Clint let out an exasperated sigh. He slipped his bow over his right shoulder and his arm came up to undo the zip on his uniform. He barely had time to expose the first bare inch of his mark—just twisted lines of black, really—before Stark snapped to attention.

 

“I believe you.”

 

“What?” Clint stood frozen, most of his mark still covered.

 

“I totally believe you. You’re a trustworthy guy.” He glanced over his shoulder, wincing a little. “Hey, Beaver! Leave it. Let’s go check on Thor and Widow.”

 

Rogers finally looked over, and Hulk looked too. Hastily, Clint covered his mark again. “Are you talking to me?” Rogers asked.

 

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go already.”

 

Rogers seemed skeptical, but he still gave Hulk one final pat on the shoulder with his gloved hand. “Anytime you feel like it,” he told Hulk. He marched over to Clint and Stark and handed Clint a pile of clothes. Khakis and a button-down shirt. Clint stared at them like they would eat him.

 

“Stick to the main streets and make sure he’s home in time for supper,” Stark told him flippantly as he guided the mildly confused Rogers out of the room. “And no going parking!”

 

Clint watched the elevator doors slide shut over Rogers’ sudden blush and felt a little sick.

 

He turned back to Hulk, who was staring at him silently from his place in the middle of the destroyed room. Hulk had his arms crossed over his chest, and Clint wondered what lay beneath them. He tried to take a step forward but his feet didn’t seem able to move.

 

After a moment Hulk tipped his head to one side, regarding Clint curiously. “Smash?”

 

“No,” Clint said immediately. “No, we’re done with that now.”

 

Hulk nodded, and by the time his chin had reached the down-swing he was already tipping forward. He landed in a ball curled up on the floor, arms still crossed beneath his chest, breathing slowing, slowing, slowing and his body shrinking, shrinking, shrinking until he was tiny and pink and unconscious.

 

Clint stared at Bruce Banner’s bony shoulders.

 

He finally managed to take a step forward, and another, until he was standing beside Bruce and watching him breathe face-down on the floor. He found he was clutching Bruce’s new clothes a bit manically and so he carefully set them beside the man and took a step back.

 

He crouched down and tried to will himself to be attracted to this man.

 

Bruce probably wasn’t _un_ attractive, he decided. Clint had always had a thing for curly hair, although Bruce’s was a bit short and a bit greasy. Bruce was narrow in an almost-sick way, like he hadn’t had a good meal in a long time. His torn pants barely clung to his hips, and Clint examined them with an agent’s detachment. Thin. Bony. Narrow. Freckles on his shoulders. Face slack with sleep. An indent over his nose where his glasses rested. Clint wondered about that, and why Hulk didn’t have that indent.

 

The problem, really, was that Bruce Banner was a man and Clint just wasn’t attracted to men.

 

Bruce began to stir, and Clint quickly took up residence across the room and pulled out an arrow. He picked at it dejectedly, like he was bored and entertaining himself. He breathed a sigh of relief when Bruce rolled over and gathered his clothes to his chest blearily before sitting up.

 

Clint hadn’t seen his mark. And, he decided, he didn’t want to.

 

“Good morning, Starshine,” he quipped.

 

Bruce glanced over his shoulder at him with a slight frown. His shirt was already on and half-buttoned. He dressed fast, with the hurried precision of someone who either had to leave quickly from a lot of beds or from a lot of dangerous third-world countries. After a moment his face smoothed into recognition.

 

“The Earth says ‘hello,’” he croaked. “You were on the street. The archer?”

 

“Yep.” Clint smirked and leaned back. His leg was rocking a little with pent up energy. He decided to take a risk and said, “Name’s Clint. Clint Barton.”

 

Clint catalogued Bruce’s reactions. There was no further recognition at his name. No horrified look. Just a pleasant smile. Bruce stood carefully, one hand on his waistband holding up his tattered pants and the other clutching at his khakis. His shirt was completely buttoned now, and Clint still didn’t know what was beneath it.

 

“Bruce Banner.” Bruce smiled at him from across the room and began to edge towards a door. “I’d shake your hand, but.” He shrugged, indicating his hands were full. “I’ll just go change.”

 

“Sure.” Clint kept up his smirk. “I’ll still be here. Stark wants to treat us to some kind of middle-eastern sandwich thing.”

 

Bruce tipped his head to one side, considering. “Shawarma?”

 

“Yeah, how’d you…?”

 

“Lucky guess.” Bruce gave him another tired smile and a little wave as he disappeared through the door into what was apparently a bedroom. “I’ll be right out.”

 

Clint watched him go and went back to picking at his arrows.

 

*

 

Stark had somehow managed to get back _into_ his suit, Rogers looked like he was about to sleep for another seventy years, and Thor had a determined look on his face that made Clint hate him a little. He kept one leg on Natasha’s chair in a desperate attempt to ground himself and tried not to look at Bruce’s slight smile as he ate.

 

*

 

It wasn’t like they all moved in together, or anything.

 

In fact, they all went their separate ways pretty much immediately. Clint watched Bruce and Tony ride off into the sunset, still trying to convince himself that he hadn’t just let his soul mate get away. He tried to throw himself back into his work, filled with espionage and sniping, but something felt weird. It itched at the back of his mind, and he convinced himself it was just because he didn’t know for sure. He saw his SHIELD-mandated therapist and very carefully didn’t mention anything about the weird mess located above his heart. He had enough of a mess going on in his life.

 

After seven weeks of this, Steve sent him a text that read simply, “Picnic?”

 

He shook off the bizarre notion that Captain America was sending texts now and wrote back, “Sure. When and where?”

 

Steve brought the sandwiches and Clint brought Natasha. The three of them wound up at a little park bench in D.C., staring at each other and realizing they didn’t have much to talk about besides saving the world.

 

“Tony is in Malibu,” Steve said carefully as he laid out sandwiches and little bags of chips. “I’m not sure where Dr. Banner is. I was hoping Thor would be able to come, but unfortunately he never wrote back.”

 

Clint frowned and unwrapped the cellophane on his sandwich. “Thor has a cellphone?”

 

“Not exactly.” Steve looked uncomfortable, but he interrupted Clint’s questioning look by saying, “It’s classified.”

 

“Of course it is.” Clint rolled his eyes and bit into the sandwich. He wondered if Steve had made them himself, or if some SHIELD lackey had spent the day in the kitchen anguishing over whether Captain America preferred white or wheat.

 

“I know where we can find Banner,” Natasha said delicately around a crispy potato chip. She smiled slightly as they both turned to look at her, Steve impressed and Clint afraid. “I’ll invite him to the next one.”

 

Steve smiled dazzlingly. “That sounds great.”

 

Clint went back to silently eating his sandwich and listened to Nat and Steve fall into easy conversation with each other.

 

*

 

Tony was pissed.

 

Apparently, this was enough to get the gang back together _including_ Thor, who was standing off to one side with his arms over his chest and a tight frown on his face. Steve was standing ram-rod straight next to a chair, and Natasha was sitting prim in a chair of her own. Clint had taken up residence on the back of a seat and was pointedly not looking at where Bruce had slumped low and was curling his fingers together absently on the table.

 

Tony flicked one hand in a rude gesture and suddenly the room was filled with holograms and files floating in the air. Tony ground his teeth together and growled, “Agent Coulson is alive.”

 

There was a sudden flurry of activity. Steve stepped forward, mouth agape and eyes hopeful. Thor clenched his biceps a little harder. Natasha didn’t move, but Clint caught the flash in her eyes. Clint felt like someone had ripped the scab off his chest and tried to shove his heart back in. Tony was still seething.

 

Bruce carefully raised his hand and asked, “Sorry, who?”

 

Tony deflated a little at his words. “You didn’t meet him. Guess you’re just a good enough person to not need that little extra push in the form of Fury being a jackass.”

 

Steve interrupted before Tony could go on a tirade. “He’s one of SHIELD’s agents. We were told he was killed in Loki’s attack. He was…” He glanced down at the floor, face carefully blank. “Close, to all of us.”

 

“ _Close_.” Clint barked out a laugh. “That doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

 

Bruce gave him a long, careful look before nodding slightly. “I see.”

 

“Regardless.” Tony slammed his hands on the table. “He’s alive. What are we doing about it?”

 

Clint pulled a screen towards himself and read over it as Steve and Tony began to argue in the background (“Maybe we should leave well enough alone?” “Hell no! We need to mount a rescue operation.”) Clint read silently to himself, frowning a little at what he saw.

 

“When did you find out he was alive?” he asked, interrupting Tony just in time to prevent a strangling.

 

“Six days ago.”

 

Clint’s frown deepened. “Why’d you wait so long to tell us?”

 

Tony looked a bit sheepish. “I needed time to hack SHIELD’s files again.”

 

“It takes you about thirty seconds to hack SHIELD,” Bruce said quietly. “But the earliest files are, in fact, dated only four days ago.” He swung his screen around so they could see. Clint found himself leaning in automatically, and Bruce shied away a little.

 

“So I meant four days ago, whatever! He’s alive!” He swung his arms out to indicate the screens and holograms all around. Clint suddenly realized how exhausted the man looked, wrung out like an old dishcloth. “We need to do something.”

 

“We do.” Steve placed a gentle hand on Tony’s shoulder, which only served to set Tony more on edge. “But we can’t go rushing in without a plan.”

 

Tony relaxed a little at that, and nodded.

 

It was Natasha who suggested they discuss this over lunch and Thor who insisted they indulge in something the “excitable Lady Darcy” had told him about. Which was how Clint found himself pouring frozen yogurt into a cup and wondering what his life was coming to. He got pistachio and didn’t think about the irony.

 

He sat next to Natasha (vanilla and kiwi) and across from Steve (lemon ice and blueberries). Tony (chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate) gave him weird looks from where he was slumped next to Bruce (“none for me, thanks”). Thor was smack in the middle, with three cups filled with a little bit of everything.

 

“So, plan?” Tony asked. He seemed a bit calmer. Clint noticed that Tony had grabbed two spoons, and watched as he unceremoniously shoved one into Bruce’s hand and pushed his cup a little closer to the man. Bruce frowned, but did take a polite bite.

 

“We just break into whatever hospital they have him in,” Clint said. He swirled his spoon in his mouth and enjoyed the taste of pistachios. “Bust him out and throw him a huge party.”

 

“That would only upset Fury,” Steve said carefully. He picked at his lemon ice with an oddly studious expression.

 

“Good!” Tony exploded. “We want him pissed. He deserves it.” He shoveled a few spoonfuls into his mouth.

 

“As much as I desire to see the Son of Coul again, enraging Fury would not help us.” Thor looked a little ashamed, either because of the glare Tony gave him or because he had already finished his three cups.

 

“I agree,” Bruce murmured into his empty spoon.

 

Tony whirled around and gaped at Bruce. “ _Et tu,_ Brucie? I figured you’d be the first one on the get-Fury-to-bust-a-vein bandwagon.”

 

Bruce smiled a little and glanced up at Tony. Clint frowned at the sight. “It’s usually not very wise to anger the man who holds the keys to your cell.”

 

An odd silence fell over the table, punctuated by the sounds of awkward eating. Bruce went back to staring at his spoon, and Clint felt a little sick.

 

He glanced at Natasha and read her eyes. He didn’t have to ask to know what she thought of the whole mess. “So we’re not going to break him out,” Clint surmised. “But who says we can’t visit him?”

 

No one seemed to have any objections to that. Tony was smiling again; Steve looked thoughtful. Thor rose to obtain more frozen yogurt. Bruce still stared at his spoon as if it were a spiritual guide. Clint leaned in a little, dropping his voice low for only Bruce to hear. “Bruce,” he said. He paused to clear his throat and push his pistachio ice cream towards the man. Bruce went a little wide-eyed at the offering. “Can you finish that for me?” He decided it wasn’t weird because Tony had done it first.

 

“Thanks,” Bruce whispered back. He gathered the cup close to himself and began to take slow, measured bites as the table descended into master plans and strategy around him.

 

It took Clint awhile, but he eventually managed to tear his gaze away.

 

*

 

“So.” Coulson gave them all a dry, bland look and smoothed a hand over his already-perfectly-smooth suit jacket. “Seen any good movies lately?”

 

“Yeah.” Tony had fixed his bright eyes on Coulson from the moment they’d walked in. “There’s the one where the guy dies and his friends rescue him, but he’s still just as boring as ever.”

 

*

 

That was how they ended up actually moving in together. Coulson got a floor above the hospital wing. Steve kept his quaint apartment in D.C., but he spent just as much time in the tower. Natasha was there whenever she wasn’t on a mission. Tony flitted in and out sometimes with Pepper in tow, occasionally with a man named Rhodey. Thor had his own suite which he smiled beatifically over before promptly returning to Asgard. Bruce got the best deal—a whole floor to himself, plus four floors of labs. Clint was jealous, making off with only one floor and an archery range.

 

It was still nice, he thought to himself as he sunk arrow after arrow into the targets. He counted them off, one by one, until his arm was sore and he had sunk over two hundred of them.

 

He turned around and nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of Bruce.

 

“Aw, Banner.” He pressed a hand over his chest to still his beating heart. “Scared me.”

 

“Sorry,” Bruce said quietly, not sounding sorry at all. In fact his eyes were oddly bright and searching, as if looking for what he was smiling about. “Steve sent me to get you. He’s taking the team building very seriously and wants everyone for movie night.”

 

“Even Thor?” He slid his hand up to rub at his sore shoulder.

 

“Well he _wants_ Thor, but he isn’t going to get him.” Bruce blinked to himself, eyes fixed on where Clint was rubbing his shoulder. “You should get that looked at.”

 

“If only we had a doctor here.”

 

Bruce suddenly looked ashamed. He turned and headed for the elevator, calling, “Not that kind of doctor,” over his shoulder.

 

Clint followed him anyway. “So what’d Steve choose for us to watch?”

 

“Actually.” Here, Bruce looked even more ashamed as he took up post as far from Clint as he could get in the elevator. “He asked us to choose in alphabetical order. So, I picked _Ghostbusters_.” Bruce laced his fingers together and stared at the corner of the elevator as they rode up. “Sorry. At least you get to pick next.”

 

Clint had to laugh. “That’s as good a choice as any.” He rolled his shoulder until something seemed to click into place and let out a short sigh. “I’d ’a just picked _Grease_.”

 

“That is a good choice.” Bruce examined him coolly. It reminded Clint weirdly of the look Hulk had given him weeks ago when he’d asked about smashing. “Is this a theme? Only movies that start with ‘g?’”

 

“How many are there?” Clint considered. He glanced askance at Bruce. “ _G.I. Joe._ That’s one, right?”

 

“Sounds like a real movie,” Bruce agreed. “There are two _Ghostbusters_ movies.”

 

“If we’re subjecting ourselves to sequels we can just work through all the _Godzilla_ movies.” The elevator doors opened and together they slipped into the main living room. “Godzilla one, two, nine-hundred-seventy-seven...”

 

Bruce sat in the easy chair and Clint claimed the couch. They kept going for a bit, wracking their minds over movies that started with g until Steve helpfully piped up with _The Grapes of Wrath_ and Tony threw in _Galaxy Quest._ Tony kicked Clint off the couch as Pepper and Rhodey wandered in, and Clint ended up squeezing on the loveseat with Natasha and Coulson while Jarvis patiently explained how to find a movie to Steve.

 

They were reaching the end of the movie—with ghosts exploding all over the screen—when Clint realized he hadn’t actually been watching it. He was looking directly at Bruce. At the bend in his knees as he sat curled up on the easy chair. At his curly mop of hair, longer now and clean. At his glasses neatly folded and slipped into the neck of his shirt. At the space above his heart, still a complete mystery to Clint.

 

He turned back to the screen and tried to force himself to stop thinking about it.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Bruce wiped away the steam and contemplated how old he was getting.

 

He stared at himself in the mirror, cataloguing frown lines and crow’s feet. His skin seemed sallow to him, dried and stretched thin. His shoulders looked too sharp and bony. There were freckles on his shoulders and he hated them. They reminded him of when he was a pale-face little boy running outside in the noon-day heat to escape, and of sunburn after sunburn with Ross nipping at his heels.

 

He swiped his thumb across the smooth glass to clear out the rest of the steam and sighed. It was still there in the space above his heart. Three simple words in stilted chicken-scratch and black ink.

 

_ Clinton Francis Barton. _

 

*

 

Tony cornered Clint in the hallway. “So what’s the deal with you two?”

 

Clint could only shrug. “You were right. He doesn’t have a mark.” He didn’t know that, but he was beginning to suspect it had to be true.

 

Tony narrowed his eyes at him. Clint could see his jaw working as he considered Clint’s words carefully. “Nope,” he snapped finally. “I lied earlier: you are completely untrustworthy.”

 

Clint rolled his eyes and tried to edge away, but Tony mirrored his every move. Clint let out a low sigh and warned, “Tony…”

 

Tony smirked a little and jerked his head. “Wanna see something cool?”

 

“No.” Clint followed him anyway.

 

They slipped into a little side room. They were everywhere in the tower, a necessary by-product of the sheer size of the thing. Clint took a quick glance around the sparsely decorated room and was just about to ask what all this was about when Tony started taking off his shirt.

  


“Uh,” Clint said brilliantly. 

 

“Oh, relax.” Tony scoffed at him. He’d already removed his over shirt, and next was a t-shirt followed by his tank top. He tossed them aside and affected a cocksure grin.

 

Most people would have looked at the arc reactor first. At the circle of glowing metal that kept Tony Stark alive. But Clint only had eyes for the space above Tony’s heart and down his side, twisting around his ribs and back until…

 

“Holy hell how many do you  _ have _ ?”

 

“Eight, last count. Unless you count the fact that Agent got crossed out and rewritten, because apparently simply un-crossing the name isn’t good enough for the gods of fate.” He twisted around a little to eye his list of names with a mild smile. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure it’s only eight because this one—” He tapped the name third from the bottom, a tangled mess of black letters and symbols and fingerprints. “Sometimes says ‘Hulk.’”

 

“No,” Clint said. He stared at Tony.

 

Tony stared back for a moment before shrugging. “Yes?” He didn’t sound unsure. He smirked. “I wasn’t born with all of them. I keep growing more. Better stay away or you’ll end up below the belt line.”

 

Clint kept staring. Then, he blinked and his mind clicked into place and he actually read the names on Tony’s chest.

 

It really was a list. Virginia Potts, Steve Rogers, Rhodey Rhodes, Happy Hogan, JARVIS, a mess of scribbles,  ~~ Agent Coulson  ~~ Phil Coulson, and Natalie Rushman, all in varying handwriting and sizes. 

  


Clint didn’t know what to ask about first.

 

“Wow, rendered speechless.” Tony actually sounded impressed. He shrugged his tank top back on. “Don’t tell Bruce that I managed that just by taking my shirt off. He’ll get jealous.”

 

“I’m not even,” Clint started, but then he couldn’t finish. He sat down on the ground. Tony hovered over him like one of his robots.

 

“Look on the bright side,” Tony said flippantly. “If I do grow your name it’ll be right by Natasha’s. She’s down so low she’s basically my liver-mate, so…”

 

“Wrong side of the body.” Clint stared forward at a speck of dust on the ground, suddenly realizing that he wasn’t special. It felt strange.

 

“Huh.” Tony pondered that for a moment. “I guess you’re right. Look, the only reason I’m telling you this is because you’re bound to find out sometime. We live in too close of quarters, and you hide in too many air vents, for you not to see. And I don’t want you thinking I’m cribbing on your boyfriend.”

 

“’Cribbing?’” Clint muttered incredulously. But he shook his head. He stood back up and said, “You really don’t have to worry. Like I said: he doesn’t have a mark. And anyway.” He gestured blankly with one hand. “Why wouldn’t you tell him about yours?”

 

“Why wouldn’t you?”

 

Clint frowned, setting his jaw roughly. “You have just as much claim to him as I do.”

 

“I really don’t.” Tony rolled his shoulders back in a flippant shrug. “He fits me, but I don’t fit him.”

  


Clint wasn’t sure what to say to that. They both stared at each other for a moment. Tony’s eyes were back to being bright and his jaw was working again, and Clint suddenly felt like Tony was trying to manipulate him. He frowned and plucked at the front of his shirt.

 

“So what are you going to do?” Tony asked.

 

Clint shook his head and tried not to laugh. He was only marginally effective. “I don’t know.”

 

“Cool,” Tony said. He suddenly strolled forward and clapped Clint on the back. “You should figure that out.”

 

Before Clint could say anything more, Tony was already gathering up his wayward shirts and marching out the door. Clint didn’t watch him go.

 

He went back to plucking at his shirt, wondering what his skin said today.

 

*

 

Steve found Clint draped over a bar stool contemplating the backwash in a bottle of beer.

 

It was a familiar scene—not because Steve had been to this particular bar before or seen Clint in such a state, but because of the certain melancholic air about the place, the smell of alcohol and bad life choices that permeated the wood. If it had been a little dimmer, had fewer televisions, it could have passed for war-era depressiveness. 

 

He slipped onto the stool beside Clint and ordered a mojito because he liked the taste. 

 

  
“You can’t get drunk,” Clint pointed out.

 

“No, I can’t. Sorry to disappoint.” He offered Clint a smile but it missed the mark.

 

“That’s okay.” Clint swirled his beer around, watching the foam catch on the sides of the bottle. “I’m used to it.” He downed the rest and when the bartender delivered the mojito, he reached over and plucked it from Steve’s fingers.

 

Steve settled for picking apart a napkin and keeping his smile up in case Clint happened to glance over. “Something you want to talk about?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“I didn’t realize you were a melancholic drunk.”

 

Clint laughed dryly. “I’m not.” 

 

Steve raised a brow at him and Clint scoffed. They went back and forth for a moment before Clint fixed unmoving eyes on the television. 

 

“Look,” Steve said. “I’m not going to pretend to know what’s going on in your head. The world’s…changed since my time. Some things are for the better, some aren’t. But this thing you’ve got could really go somewhere, if you give it a chance.”

 

Clint kept his eyes fixed on the screen, clearly not watching the sportscaster droll on. “What did Tony tell you?”

 

“Nothing bad.” He took a chance and reached forward, placing his hand reassuringly on Clint’s

shoulder. Clint turned to look at it with a bemused expression akin to self-loathing. 

 

“What’s this?” Clint asked. “Are we bonding? A few drinks and then it’s ‘you show me yours, I’ll show you mine?’”

 

“You’re talking about my…” Steve pitched his voice low. “…Soul mark?”

 

“Yeah, not that it matters. I know what’s on you. Only…” He frowned. He gnawed on a mint leaf as he considered. “I guess maybe I don’t.”

 

Steve frowned to himself, feeling the conversation slipping inexorably away from him. “Maybe I should get you back to the tower.”

 

“You never call the tower ‘home,’” Clint said. He still slipped from the bar stool and laid down a few bills for the drinks. Steve watched as Clint shoved about a dozen napkins into his pockets. “Is that because D.C. is your home?”

 

“No.” Steve thought he might have to help Clint, but the other man walked straight and true towards the door. Steve shadowed him. “My home exists in 1943.”

 

Clint paused outside the door and turned to appraise him. “I’m not so drunk I won’t remember that tomorrow. Better keep your secrets, y’know, secret.”

 

Steve shrugged. “I don’t care if you know.” He took a deep breath, cataloguing midnight air and smog. “What are you going to do?”

 

“Y’know…” Clint contemplated for a moment, gazing up at the starless sky. “Everyone keeps asking me that. I sort of came here to figure that out. Thought maybe drowning my sorrows would make the rest clearer. But it didn’t really work. What about you?” He turned and tapped Steve on the chest, right above his heart. “What are you going to do?”

  


“It’s not something I can do anything about.”

 

Clint tipped his head to one side, his appraisal of Steve hitting an all-time high. “So you’re trying to, what, advise me to chase after the man of my supposedly-fated dreams, consequences be damned, when you won’t do the same?”

 

“Clint.” Steve frowned. “What do you think my soul marks says?” He watched Clint waver in indecision before shrugging.

 

“We’re all messed up people with messed up marks. I doubt it says  _ Peggy Carter _ in cursive, or anything.”

 

“No, it doesn’t.” Steve shook off the shiver he felt just from hearing her name. “It’s not really a name. More of a...title? I’m not sure what you would call it.”

 

“Mine’s not a name, either.”

 

They both stilled for a moment, listening to the sounds of the city around them. Cars inched by. The cement was warm beneath their feet. 

 

“Huh,” Clint laughed, startling Steve out of his reverie. 

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing, I just…” Clint shrugged. He was still gazing up at the sky. “I just…maybe I am a melancholic drunk.”

 

  
Steve put on his best Captain America smile and gave Clint a pat on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll figure it out.”

 

Clint looked at him oddly for a moment before shrugging out from under his hand. “I’m not exactly known for my steller decision making.” He let out a sigh and scrubbed a hand over his brow. “Just...never mind. Let’s go home.”

 

Steve watched him turn on his heel and being marching away again before scrambling to catch up. They fell into step with one another, Steve with his hands at his sides and Clint hunched over with his fists buried in his pockets. 

 

*

 

_ SHIELD classified Level 10 _

_ ROGERS, STEVEN GRANT Vital Information _

_ Soul Mark consists of three words in bold typeface. Color of the mark is unusual, being silver rather than black as is typical for a caucasian individual. The typeface appears to bear a striking resemblance to the  Baskerville font invented in 1914.  _

_ Recommend that Rogers remain UNINFORMED about status of The Winter Soldier. _

 

*

 

“Hey, Doc!”

 

Bruce jumped and swiveled around, his heart dropping as he took in the sight of Clint’s easy grin and

swagger. Bruce nervously fiddled with the spanner clutched in his hands and started mentally brainstorming ways he could keep from touching the other man.

 

“Something I can help you with, Clint?” he asked as softly as he could manage.

 

Clint finished his jaunty stroll across Bruce’s lab and began to push Bruce’s equipment around, clearing a spot on the table. “I’ve got a proposition for you,” Clint said. His grin was infectious enough that Bruce had to actively work at not mirroring it. 

 

“All right.” Bruce sat very still on his stool and watched as Clint finished clearing a spot at the table and began to pull bits of paper from his pockets. Napkins, actually. Some were crumpled and torn and had scribbles on them and little stick figure drawings in solid black ink. Bruce blinked at the display and filled the silence with a blank, “Okay.”

 

“These’r my weapons ideas.” Clint gestured at his pile of napkins. Bruce thought for a moment he seemed nervous, but that couldn’t be true. “What do you think?”

 

Bruce carefully reached out to the napkin nearest him and picked it up. He tried not to get too close to Clint, lest they accidentally make contact and cause Bruce to lose all of his carefully constructed denial. He examined the napkin absently, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

 

Clint had drawn a little stick figure with an arrow pointing to it labelling it “bad guy.” It had horns on its head like Loki. All around the figure were little wiggly lines, which Clint had helpfully labelled “foam or something.” He’d signed the napkin like an artist would with his Hawkeye bull’s-eye symbol in the corner.

 

He tried to stay dispassionate, but it was hard to do so when he was being confronted with the handwriting that was currently in residence above his heart.

 

Bruce brushed his thumb over the little Hawkeye symbol and contented himself with that. “Foam?”

  


“One of my better ideas.” Clint rested his hip against the table and crossed his arms over his chest. Bruce watched the motion but didn’t linger—he only did so because he knew that’s what normal people did when someone moved during conversation. “Some kind of highly reactive foam. Expands and then hardens around the enemy so that they can’t move. SHIELD had something similar in beta, but I think they scrapped it. And anyway it was huge, so no way it was fitting in an arrow. But.” Clint grinned and Bruce quickly diverted his eyes. “You’re a genius, so I thought you might be able to figure it out?”

 

Bruce let out a dry, self-deprecating laugh. “I’m no weapons manufacturer.” He carefully replaced the napkin and smoothed out its edges. “You should talk to Tony about that.”

 

“Yeah, but he’s…” Clint made a motion with one hand that was simultaneously the universal sign for  _ insane _ and  _buried inside so many Iron Man suits he’s got Vitamin D deficiency from lack of sun_. 

 

Bruce worried about how well he could read Clint.

 

“Still.” He shuffled a few items around on his table so he could look busy. “It’s not exactly my area.”

 

“You’ve built some pretty good tech before. You had that shield thing that ran on gamma emissions, didn’t you?”

 

Bruce jerked his head up in surprise. “How did you…?” He frowned. “My file. Right.”

 

“Sorry.” Clint shrugged, and he did actually look sorry. Bruce resisted the urge to tell him everything was going to be okay. “I guess it’s kind of weird how many secrets we all knew about each other before we even met.”

 

Bruce spun a few knobs on his microscope and murmured into the lens. “Glad to know everything

anyone could want to know about me is buried in a SHIELD file somewhere.”

 

He kept spinning the knobs for a moment until he realized that Clint had gone strangely silent. He swiveled to see why and found Clint giving him a long, heated look. It felt like he was getting scanned, examined. Bruce tried to give nothing away as Clint gave him a thorough once-over that belied his history as a spy.

 

“Not everything,” Clint said after the silence had grown to uncomfortable lengths. Then he let out another shrug and his face split into a smile, and Bruce felt his heart clench.

 

“I can take a look.” Bruce reached out and grabbed another napkin at random. He couldn’t really focus on it. “See what ideas are workable. You might, uh, have to help me interpret your stick figures.”

 

Clint’s smile grew. “I’d like that a lot.”

 

They put their heads together and poured over Clint’s messy scribblings, and Bruce tried very hard to make sure their fingertips never brushed, their shoulders never rubbed together, their heads never pressed too near.

 

He was completely successful.

 

*

 

Natasha had her mission bag looped over her shoulder as she contemplated interrupting them.

 

She stared out through the observation glass and down into the archery range where Clint was currently preoccupied with testing Bruce’s new arrows. They really were quite ingenious, and they made her consider having Bruce take a look at her Widow’s Bite. But she quickly dismissed the notion.

 

  
Instead, she watched as Clint sunk arrow after arrow, occasionally pumping his fist victoriously in the air or turning to Bruce with wide, bright eyes and saying something excitable that she couldn’t hear from this distance. She watched as Bruce made himself small and still, his motions artificially fluid as he handed Clint arrows and took notes on his datapad. 

 

Natasha noted that they never touched, but it was only because she was trained to notice such things. The fact that they both clearly  _ wanted _ to touch… _ That _ she noted because she was their friend.

 

She didn’t talk to Clint before her mission. He needed time to figure himself out.

 

*

 

_ Avengers, Assemble! _

_ The world was a hot place. Air was fire burning, heating, scalding, a prickling pain on his skin. Inside Banner it was cool and calm—water flowing soft and serene. But sometimes he was too big to fit inside Banner. _

_ He liked looking for water when couldn’t be inside. The world was fire, pain, fear. Water let his skin stop hurting. It made him sleep. _

_ Things had changed. Now he could find water in the shape of a man. _

 

*

 

Clint jabbed his grappling arrow into the side of the building and swung over the side. He rappelled down quickly and efficiently, almost bored as he watched his booted toes dig into the concrete and slide over broken glass.

  


When he made landfall he retracted his grapple and swung his bow over his shoulder. The streets were quiet now, the sounds of battle gone completely and replaced with the hiss and crackle of broken electronics from downed robots. Clint kept one ear trained to listen for the sounds of civilians, but he heard nothing. He picked his way through the streets.

 

Steve buzzed in his ear. “Any eyes on Hulk?”

 

“Saw him over on 17th about ten minutes ago,” Tony responded. His comm sounded like he was going through a wind tunnel. “But I’m busy.”

 

Clint grimaced. “I’ll pick him up.”

 

“Copy.”

 

He keyed his comm off and picked up the pace. He jogged through the piles of destroyed robots steadily, his mind wandering to what they would have to eat post-battle. The scent of smoke was acrid and cloying, but he hardly noticed it.

 

He found Hulk shifting through a pile of dead robots, turning over metal and wires studiously with his broad green hands. Clint hung back and watched him for a moment. Hulk was looking at the robots in the same way Bruce had looked at his weapons designs. Seriously, intently, quizzically. He was studying them.

 

“Hey, jade jaws!” Clint yelled across the street. “Leave the cleanup to the guys who get paid.”

 

Hulk turned to look at him with that studious look still glued to his face before breaking out into a frankly terrifying smile. It was the kind of smile Clint never saw on Bruce—wide and bright.

 

  
“Cupid,” Hulk grumbled. He sounded…weirdly happy to see him.

 

Clint watched as Hulk strolled over to him, each footfall tearing apart the pavement beneath his toes. It was such a surreal experience—stranded in the wasteland of another city-wide battle, Hulk  smiling at him—that he didn’t register that Hulk was shirtless until the giant was suddenly right in front of him.

 

“Shit,” Clint said, because there was no deluding himself anymore.

 

It wasn’t his name. It was his symbol. As tiny as a freckle to Hulk and plastered just above his heart, was Hawkeye’s bull’s-eye. 

 

Hulk tipped his head to one side, regarding him curiously as he struggled to breathe. He was only a few steps away and Clint could have reached up and bridged the gap between them, but instead he took a step back. His heel caught on the concrete and he tumbled to the ground—

 

Just in time for the laser fire to whiz over his head.

 

He was back on his feet in a flash. He spun, an arrow dancing into his hand, and fired at the nearest moving robot only to realize that they  _ all _ were moving. They were standing back up, shifting gears back into place, snapping wires into over-heated ports. Clint fired another arrow and felt rather than heard Hulk smashing through the same robot that had threatened him.

 

He jammed a finger into his ear to force his comm to broadcast on all channels. “’Bots are back up,” he stated dispassionately as he took down another one. “Could use a little help.”

 

He heard them acknowledge, but he was already turning and firing his arrow at the top of the nearest skyscraper. He hooked the grapple to his belt and rode high, high, until he was far away from this problem and he could pick off robots with ease.

 

  
When he looked down, Hulk was gazing up at him like a lost, hurt child.

 

*

 

“What’s the problem?” Tony made landfall easily, catching himself with his repulsors right beside Clint who was staring into the crater in which Bruce was lying, unconscious.

 

“I can’t stay. I’ve got a thing,” Clint said. He turned on his heel and began to march away.

 

Tony frowned at him and ran one gloved hand through his dirty, matted hair. Two rounds of robots was enough for any hero. “Don’t you want to be there when he wakes up?”

 

Clint’s shoulders stiffened and he froze at Tony’s words. He turned slowly to look at him, face drawn together in a kind of anger that even Tony—so horrible at reading people—could easily interpret. “No,” Clint said. “I really, really don’t.”

 

Tony watched as he spun around and began walking away again, feeling confused. He slipped down the edge of the crater to where Bruce still lay and wished he’d had the foresight to build a spare shirt compartment into his suit.

 

Then Bruce stirred and sat up looking groggy and mildly horrified, and Tony saw his chest and all he could do was laugh and say, “Well that explains a lot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I played with the Steve & Clint conversation for like a week straight and I'm still not happy with it. 
> 
> In this chapter there is a mini-thesis on Science Boyfriends. "He fits me, but I don't fit him." I love science boyfriends, but sometimes it makes me sad.


	4. Chapter 4

Phil found him resolutely working his way through a basket of tiny, bite-sized tacos in a seedy sports bar three states away.

He slipped into the chair across the table from Clint, but before he could say anything Clint spoke up.

“I’ve decided to quit drinking.”

Phil opened his mouth, shut it, and then opened it again to say, “Okay.”

“I don’t think I ever had a problem.” Phil watched as Clint shoveled tiny tacos into his mouth one after another. “But better safe than sorry, you know?”

“Sure.”

Clint glanced up at him, and Phil smiled. He knew it was his blandly annoying smile but he didn’t really have another one to offer. Clint carefully chewed his bite and swallowed, grimacing as he did so.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” he asked.

Phil just kept smiling. “For running off after a battle without a proper debrief? A little, yes.”

Clint rolled his eyes. He played with the corner of his napkin absently, and Phil noted with interest that the napkin was blank. Usually Clint was known for his barroom doodles. “I didn’t run off to escape paperwork, although that is a nice bonus.”

“Then why did you?”

Clint huffed out a breath and chewed on another soggy taco. He started folding the square napkin into a little origami crane. After a moment of silence he finally glanced up at Phil and gave an uncomfortable smile. “I don’t think you’d understand.”

Carefully, Phil laced his fingers together on the table and leaned in. “Try me.”

“What’s on your chest?”

The question wasn’t really a surprise. Phil had been expecting a conversation like this since he’d received his first mission briefing on the runaway Barton. “Doesn’t really matter.”

Clint frowned at that and leaned in. He was looking at his hands as he spoke, at the bird taking shape beneath his fingers. “Not like anything you could say would surprise me,” he said. “Or like it says ‘Fury,’ which would just be…wait.” He glanced up. “Tell me it doesn’t—”

“It doesn’t say ‘Fury.’” Phil waved the idea away with a slight shudder. Fury’s name was probably written above the engines of the helicarrier. “It’s no one you’ve met, or that I’ve met.”

“Oh.” Clint went back to his napkin folding. “Sorry.”

“I’m not concerned,” Phil told him honestly. He tried to keep his features blank and neutral as he continued, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“It’s just…” Clint let out a long sigh and slumped low in his seat, suddenly the picture of the misbegotten teen that Phil had picked up off the streets years ago. “Always figured I was just a freak, y’know? But now I’m the normal one on a team of freaks, and I can’t even get normal-people things right.” He became more and more horizontal as he spoke. “Meeting your soul mate’s s’posed to be easy. Everything clicks and there’s sparks.” He flickered his gaze to Phil, then back down.

Phil suddenly felt that he didn’t know exactly what they were talking about. “You translated your mark?”

“Sort of.” Clint shrugged one shoulder. He flapped the wings of his tiny crane. He took a deep breath and let it all out in a rush as he said, “It’s Banner.”

“Oh,” Phil said, nodding along. “I see.”

“Dammit.” Clint tipped forward to slump over the table, burying his head in his hands. “Shit, I can’t do anything right. I’m still a freak.”

“…Because he’s a man?” Phil guessed.

“I’m not even gay,” Clint muttered into the table. “He’s not even… _I’m_ not—I don’t know. He’s a, you know, and I’m, but he didn’t even say anything but I know I’m his now. And fucking Tony Stark is trying to crib on him, only he’s not because he’s got weird playboy morals and _hell_. What am I doing?”

Phil felt a little wobbly. He mouthed _crib?_ to himself absently before shaking it off. “Does Banner know?”

“He has to, I mean I’m…” He gestured at his chest. “I’m _there_. But he didn’t say anything.”

“Well, neither did you.”

Clint lifted his head to glare at him. “I have an excuse. Fingerprints and scribbles aren’t obvious.”

“But you still figured it out and haven’t said anything.” He leaned in sharply and was proud when Clint didn’t even startle. “Clint, do you _want_ to say something?”

Clint’s glare shifted into a quizzical, puzzled look. Like he hadn’t even thought about it. When he spoke his voice was a bit hoarse. “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t before but now…yeah. He’s just, he’s really sweet. Did you know he built me new arrows? And he said he was going to upgrade my quiver. I feel like a doofus because I’ve never done anything for him even though he’s always nice to me and quiet and calm. His hair looks really soft but I’m pretty sure he’d Hulk out if I touched him. He’s so afraid of touch only Tony’s managed to worm his way in.” He scoffed at the idea, and Phil’s bland smile widened at Clint’s obvious jealousy. “I think it would have been easier if we _weren’t_ soul mates.”

“That may be true,” Phil agreed. He reached out and stole one of Clint’s tiny tacos and ate it with a frown. “So if you want to say something, what are you doing drowning your sorrows in bad bar tacos?”

Clint looked at the dwindling pile of tacos blankly and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Phil pushed away the basket and stood up, stretching. “Come on,” he ordered. “Let’s pay for your...stuff.” He couldn’t bring himself to call it ‘food.’ “And get you home.” Clint gave him a look, so he let his smile widen and said, “Not a suggestion, Barton. Unless you’d like me to knock you back to level one and put you on Stark handling duty.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Clint shuddered and pushed away from the table. He had a curious look on his face. “Y’know, this is my third pep-talk on this subject,” he said conversationally.

“Third time lucky?”

Clint just stared at him. “I’m not used to missing once, let alone three times. So yeah.” He grinned and slipped the napkin crane into his pocket. “Third time lucky.”

*

Bruce was buried elbow-deep in his rekindled gamma shield designs when the door to his lab swished open and Clint Barton strolled in. Bruce jumped more out of habit than actual surprise and tried not to look too nervous.

“Clint,” he said warmly. “What can I…?”

He trailed off at the sight of Clint’s face—stoic determination as Clint marched across the room with his jaw squared. For a split second Bruce had the fleeting thought that SHIELD was about to come down on his head with Clint in the lead, but all that was forgotten when Clint thrust out his hand and presented him with a paper crane.

“Made this for you,” Clint explained as Bruce stared at the offering. Clint was looking anywhere but at him.

“Thank…you?” Bruce carefully reached out and pinched the crane from Clint’s grasp and Clint pulled away sharply. Bruce examined it more closely and saw it was actually a napkin crane, and the realization made him smile to himself. It was sweet.

He looked up and watched Clint pluck at the front of his shirt absently as he gauged Bruce’s reaction. Bruce tried to walk the fine line between friendly, but not too friendly, as he set the crane beside his datapad and mussed with the wings until they were standing straight.

It didn’t matter, because Clint suddenly took a step forward until he was in Bruce’s space and he said, “So, it’s a bull’s-eye then?”

Bruce shied away and tried not to make it obvious. “What is?”

“On your…” Clint gestured at his chest with one hand before returning to pulling at his shirt, eyes fixed on the space above Bruce’s heart.

Bruce suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe. This was horrible. Worst case scenario. He needed to leave, right then, and he’d been deluding himself into thinking he could stay at all. He should have known Tony could never keep his mouth shut. He took a tumbling step backwards and his hands came together at his waist to twist together nervously. He almost laughed. He’d thought he’d finally outgrown that habit.

Clint followed him as he stumbled away. “Hey, don’t freak out.” He reached out—probably to steady Bruce because, yes, intellectually Bruce knew he was panicking, but Bruce ripped away before they could make contact.

“Don’t touch me,” he growled. Hulk was nowhere near the surface, but he could still play to other people’s fears and so he pitched his voice low, dangerous.

Clint looked surprised for a split second before settling into anger. “Excuse you,” he said, and then he did the worst possible thing. He reached out and Bruce wasn’t fast enough to get away.

Clint touched him.

They both froze at the contact, staring wildly into each other’s eyes and Bruce suddenly wanted to cry. It wasn’t electric; there were no shocks running up and down his spine. He didn’t suddenly feel a jolt of pleasure and for that he was glad. Electric was synonymous with pain synonymous with rage, hurt, despair, _anger_. Electric might have meant _Hulk_.

Instead, it was warm and soft. Bruce felt like he was being pulled into a tight hug, wrapped in a warm blanket. Each nerve ending was depressed and held solid from the simple act of Clint’s fingers brushing against his wrist. He felt for the first time in nearly a decade like maybe he wasn’t going to kill someone at the drop of a hat.

Then Clint yanked away and the feeling went with him.

“You _asshole_ ,” Clint spat. He fell back against the table like Bruce had physically slapped him. “You, you absolute ass. We’ve never touched!” He was breathing heavily and Bruce held very still lest he rush to Clint’s aid. “Never? Not once? How did you—you _jerk_! You’ve avoided touching me for months because you knew, you knew that…” Clint stopped to take a breath and let it out in a frantic laugh.

Before Bruce could gather his scattered wits Clint surged forward and really _did_ hug him. He wrapped strong arms around Bruce’s bony shoulders and yanked him close to bury his face in Bruce’s neck. It was like before, but magnified. Each inch of skin was thrown into sharp relief as they touched and Clint held him close, letting loose hysterical laughter into his shoulder.

Bruce let himself be held because he’d never felt so wonderful.

He stared off into space until something snapped inside him. Some trait previously thought to be indelible washed away and he was hugging back, looping his arms around Clint and pulling him just as close, crushing their bodies together and shaking with the same laughter Clint was vibrating with and murmuring over and over, “I thought it would hurt.”

“You idiot,” Clint mumbled against his chin. “I’d never hurt you.”

Bruce wanted to say _I’d hurt you,_ but at that moment he didn’t believe it was true.

*

They tangled their legs together and stretched out right there on the floor to Bruce’s lab. Clint found himself methodically running his fingers through Bruce’s hair, tracing the bouncing curls with an intent fascination that only served to increase the gentle warmth building in his chest.

Bruce’s fingers had grown white from gripping the front of Clint’s shirt so hard. Clint examined them carefully before pulling Bruce closer again and sighing into his hair. Maybe it was a soul mate thing, but he liked the way Bruce smelled. Soft and earthy, like sandalwood. He kept breathing deep as minutes ticked by into one hour, then two and his arm and right hip fell asleep and he realized that Bruce was shaking.

“Hey.” Clint pulled back and cupped Bruce’s chin, pulling his face up to give him a crooked smile. “Are you okay?”

Bruce’s eyes slipped closed. “Sorry,” he mumbled, soft and low. “I’m just not...used to getting what I want.”

Clint thought his heart might have broken a little at the hurt woven into Bruce’s words. He clenched his jaw to avoid spitting out vitriol. He carefully ran his thumb over Bruce’s cheek as he worked through what to say, wondering if he was supposed to kiss him. Probably. But he didn’t.

“What do you want, Bruce?”

Bruce’s shaking stopped suddenly and his eyes were still closed. Clint watched him for one long moment before he couldn’t take it anymore. He pulled Bruce back into a hug and let out a breath of air. He wanted to will Bruce to answer, but at the same time he didn’t want to push. It was all too new, too weird.

“Sorry,” Clint mumbled. His voice sounded crackly to his own ears. He sighed again. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”

Bruce echoed his sigh. “...Getting what I want, it’s so...unusual. I don’t know what I should say.” Clint could feel Bruce’s words against his shoulder as he spoke. “But I…” Bruce interrupted himself with a sharp laugh. “I need to not have this. Have you. You don’t deserve this.”

Clint kept clutching Bruce closer and closer as he talked, until they were almost painfully pressed together and his throat was sore from how much he wanted to shout that Bruce was wrong. He was the one who didn’t deserve any of this. He didn’t know what to say, so he exercised his stellar decision making skills by saying, “I’m not sure if I’m attracted to you?”

“Uh.” Bruce let out another of his self-deprecating laughs. “I can understand why.”

“No.” Clint pushed him away enough that he could pierce Bruce down with his gaze, but Bruce’s eyes were still closed. His face was slack with faint, sardonic amusement. “No, Bruce, that’s not what I meant. I mean men, y’know, in general I’m not a fan. I didn’t even realize that you were, that my soul mate was you. A guy.”

“What do you mean you didn’t realize?” Bruce’s eyebrows drew together, but his eyes remained frustratingly closed.

“Here.” Clint shuffled away from him a bit more, keeping their knees locked together. He shoved a hand under the hem of his shirt and tugged it over his head in one awkward motion. “Not real big on showing this to people so you’d better— Bruce, will you open your eyes?”

Clint could clearly see that Bruce wanted to say _no_ , but he did eventually open them with a slight frown. He didn’t even look Clint in the eye for a second before dropping his gaze to Clint’s chest and the mess of inky black splashed across it.

Bruce blinked. “Oh.”

“Yeah, it’s…” Clint wasn’t sure what to say. He pressed his chin to his chest to try and see what his mark said today. He couldn’t see much, but it looked pretty typical. It was an illegible mess, a perfect reflection of his life, really. “It’s my mark.”

“Oh,” Bruce said again. He tipped his head against the floor curiously, and Clint realized he would never get tired of seeing Bruce’s solid, probing gaze. “That makes sense.”

“What? Sense?” Clint laughed breathlessly. “I’ve never gotten _that_ reaction before.”

“Well, of course.” Bruce reached forward and pressed his thumb to one corner of his mark. The touch felt warm, and Clint wished he could see what Bruce was seeing. He settled for gazing down at Bruce as he carefully felt along the edges of Clint’s mark, taking it all in.

Bruce glanced up at him, almost apologetic. “It’s highly likely that I have some form of Dissociative Identity Disorder.”

“Dis-what?” Clint tried to focus through the pleasant warm feeling of Bruce’s touch.

“Uh. Multiple Personality Disorder?” Bruce looked back down at his skin, bashful. “Because of certain...events in my past. But the only one that ever comes out anymore is the other guy.” He shrugged, and Clint got his meaning just fine. “I’ve read about this, but it’s something else to see it in practice.”

Clint wasn’t really sure what to do with the information that his mark wasn’t as crazy as he’d always believed. He thought, vaguely, that maybe he was expected to blame Bruce for all the troubles his mark had caused him. But he couldn’t really find it in his heart to do much more than sink deeper into the warm feeling that rose in his chest as Bruce touched him, examined him.

“Okay.” Clint slipped his hand up to splay overtop of Bruce’s probing fingers. He pressed Bruce’s hand flat against his chest and Bruce looked up at him again, a hint of concern flashing across his face before melting into his usual calm. Clint held his hand still and offered him a lopsided smile. “I’m just glad I figured it out and, uh, had time to get over myself.”

“I’m sorry, Clint.” Bruce wavered for a moment before dropping his gaze to the safe zone of Clint’s chest. He took a slow, even breath and let it out equally slow. “I should have said something earlier. I shouldn’t have tried to pretend that…”

“Aw, Bruce.” He decided to continue blaming the soul-mate thing on the nigh-irresistible desire to kiss it better. He settled for entangling their fingers together. “S’not your fault.”

Clint watched Bruce’s eyes as his words registered. He went from guilty to puzzled in the space of a second, and he raised his gaze again to frown at Clint. “You thought my mark was a bull’s-eye?”

“Uh, yeah. Isn’t it? That’s what’s on Hulk.”

Bruce puzzled on that for a moment before slowly shaking his head. “No. It’s your name.”

Clint froze at that, and it probably showed just where his priorities lay but the first thing he could think of was, “Crap. That means you know my middle name.”

Bruce froze too, wide brown eyes fixed on Clint for an elongated moment before something snapped and his mouth twisted into a genuine smile. A strange laugh tumbled from his lips and Clint couldn’t help but smile back and soon they were both laughing and it shouldn’t have been so funny, but Clint was already riding high on the warmth of being held so maybe it was okay.

They tangled tighter together and laughed until Clint’s stomach was a dull ache and he couldn’t breathe right; his mind was fuzzy so it made perfect sense to just give up and lean in and press a kiss to Bruce’s smiling lips.

Bruce kissed back, and Clint decided they could deal with the rest later.

*

_Some time later._

“What are you doing?”

“Shh,” Clint shushed him. “Video games.”

Bruce rolled his eyes and sat down on the couch beside him. “You know Natasha’s been calling you, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Clint said, even though he hadn’t heard anything Bruce had just told him.

“She left six voicemails. Do you want me to play them?” Bruce reached out and brushed his fingers through Clint’s hair.

Clint could never resist it when Bruce did that, so he nodded his assent.

Bruce leaned over and plucked his cellphone off the coffee table. He thumbed through it briefly and held it aloft as Natasha’s voice rang through the speakers.

“Barton,” she said, her tone clipped and sharp and instantly gaining his attention. “Vacation’s over.”

The phone beeped and offered to delete the message. Clint and Bruce exchanged quizzical looks as Natasha’s other messages played out, one after another, more of the same until the end when Natasha said, “Would it help if I told you it’s your fanboy crush? The Winter Soldier?”

Clint already had his quiver over his shoulder and his bow in his hand. He blindly reached out his other hand and Bruce met him, entangling their fingers as they strolled towards the door in sync. The touch was enough to sharpen his senses and leave him feeling warm and confident, and he couldn’t help but grin.

“Ready?” he asked.

Bruce smiled back. “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks.
> 
> I wrote some meta for this fic [here](http://adenil-umano.tumblr.com/post/100930550320/messy-soul-meta).


End file.
